Isanti Soil & Water Conservation District

We are excited to announce our new Cover Crop Program! Cover crops have been scientifically proven to improve the health of your soil. For more information or to sign up for the program please contact Matthew Remer at mremer@isantiswcd.org or 763-689-3271.

COVID-19 Update:

In an effort to protect the health of our staff and community, all staff are currently working remotely.

You can reach us by:

• Calling our office at: 763-689-3271, all calls are being forwarded to staff cell phones.  If you leave a message but do not receive a response please call back or send an email.  
• Emailing staff, we can access email remotely but there may be a lag in response time - Staff Directory.

We will do our best to return your message in a timely manner and look forward to working with you face-to-face in the near future!

Two lake shore restorations are occurring on Green lake in June 2021. The Green Lake Improvement District has started their lake restorations on shorelines that need it. Help them get more funding, meet Green Lake neighbors and lend a hand by volunteering.

Congratulations to Jacqui Baker, recipient of the 2020 Isanti Soil and Water Conservation District’s Outstanding Conservationist Award! Each year, the SWCD recognizes individuals and/or organizations for outstanding accomplishments in implementing conservation practices and improving Minnesota’s natural resources.

In early October I [Tiffany Determan, SWCD District Manager] spent the better half of a morning trekking with Jacqui on her 80 plus acres located in Isanti Township. After listening to her talk about her land and passion for trees, prairie grasses, wetlands, beetles, pigeons (Ok, Ok, all things natural) I reflected on something that Aldo Leopold, the father of wildlife management, once said. He said: “Ethical behavior is doing the right thing when no one else is watching—even when doing the wrong thing is legal.” My thought was, it must have been people like her that he was reflecting on.

It is clear to the SWCD that Jacqui whole-heatedly believes in conservation. After purchasing her property over 20 years ago she began an extensive effort to rehabilitate the land and has done an amazing job. A few of Jacqui’s great conservation efforts include:

In Barry Springborn’s front yard, prairie grasses and flowers buzz with pollinators. The driveway on this family farm outside Cambridge in Isanti County is lined with blooming partridge pea. Bumblebees feed on the yellow flowers. Song sparrows sing from the tall grasses swaying in the wind. Sandhill cranes fly overhead. Trumpeter swans appear on the far edge of Johnny’s Lake. The Springborn farm is perched above the small, shallow lake. Recently installed buffers will protect water quality and provide wildlife habitat.

Springborn raises beef cattle and corn. In 2017, he planted a buffer adjacent to Johnny’s Lake with a pollinator seed mix in accordance with Minnesota’s riparian buffer law.

“When the buffer strip requirement came along, at first I was confused. I had some conversations with staff from the Isanti Soil & Water Conservation District (SWCD), and they helped me get in touch with students at Anoka-Ramsey Community College that were conducting a pollinator study. The college supplied the pollinator flower seed, and I contacted a private vendor to get a native grass mix that would work with the flower mix,” Springborn said.

Do you love fishing the Rum River? Do you live along or near the Rum River south of Grandy? If you answered yes to either of these questions you will be interested and excited to learn about this project!

Construction is currently underway to restore flow to a one-mile segment of the Rum River that was abandoned due to a man-made diversion dug over 50 years ago. Due to increased rain events over the last 20 years, the diversion began causing a number of problems including the disconnection of the river from its floodplain (this can result in increased flooding to downstream communities) and widening of the river upstream (this can result in erosion of the streambanks and loss of fish habitat).

To resolve the problems, the Isanti Soil and Water Conservation District (ISWCD) secured a $250,000 grant from the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment and funding from The Nature Conservancy to hire Minnesota Native Landscapes to fill the diversion and redirect flow into the abandoned river channel. The project is currently underway and is slated for completion late March 2019.

If you are interested in learning more about the project, or seeing the completed project, consider taking a canoe trip down the Rum River this summer (access the river from Co. Rd. 14). OR, contact Tiffany Determan, Isanti SWCD @ 763-689-3271